More Countries Move to Eliminate Paper Currency

While the United States continues to be one of the few countries to circulate its unit currency in paper, two countries have recently announced that they are going to replace their lowest denomination notes with coin.

The Czech Republic will begin to circulate their 50-koruna banknote with a coin. While both the coin and banknote will circulate simultaneously, the Ceska Narodni Banka (Czech National Bank) expects to discontinue the circulation of banknotes. No decision has been made as to the design of the new coin.

Earlier this year, the Banco Central de Nicaragua (Central Bank of Nicaragua) announced the new issue of a 10 cordobas coin. These coins will co-circulate with their banknote counterparts until the paper money wears out. The bank will soon begin to circulate a 500 cordoba note.

Central banks across the world are beginning to look into replacing lower denomination currency with coins. In Canada, a friend reports that he was involved with a survey that asked about replacing the Canadian 5-dollar note with a coin.

In the mean time, the paper dollar continues to circulate in the United States even though it would be economically beneficial to replace the paper with coin. Politics will remain in the way of the government doing the right thing.